The Egrets
by spinkie
Summary: A sequel to The Upsilon Device.
1. Romulan Thieves

Starbase 1194  
  
Captain McDonald sat behind his desk in his office. It was not a large office, but that was because he did not want a large one. He lived in a small house as a child, and he had many happy memories of his childhood. He and his family lived in just outside of San Francisco, and he often went into town where he learned all about Starfleet. The day that his seventh grade class went to Starfleet Headquarters as a field trip was the day that he decided that he wanted to be a Starfleet captain. Starbase 1194 is the newest starbase in the Federation, and the engineers who designed the base made Captain McDonald's office just the way that he wanted it. The captain looked at the clock on his desk. 18:57 it said. He just had to wait for one more report to come in, then he could return to his quarters and sleep. He was tired after working for more than twelve hours. He had arrived at the base early this morning to make an inspection of the Egret hangar. He had little knowledge of the work that went into designing the Egret, but some of his closest friends had spent many long hours perfecting it. Today they showed him the fruits of their labor. When he went down to the Egret hangar, as it was recently renamed, he was introduced to Starfleet's newest creation—the Egret. The Egret is an interplanetary defense fighter. An Egret has just enough room for one pilot, making them much easier and faster to build. Egrets can be deployed to deal with smaller problems, such as capturing an enemy shuttle or destroying asteroids on a collision course with a starbase, saving the starships for more important missions. Every Egret is equipped with an upsilon device, but using it would seriously deplete their warp cores, so the device is generally not used. Egrets are armed with standard phasers, and can be equipped with photon torpedoes, quantum torpedoes, or other weapons. Egrets have a powerful shield grid that can deflect most kinds of enemy fire for a reasonable amount of time. They were also designed to be able to operate very effectively in various types of planetary atmospheres as well as outer space.   
Then the door bell beeped.  
"Come," he said. A lieutenant commander entered the room. "Tell me, could you have taken any longer if you wanted to?"  
"Sorry, sir," the man said. "Here's the report."  
"Finally," Captain McDonald said and began reading it.  
"Group Four is still down for repairs? They've been in that damn hangar for ages. Will you please tell the crews down there to hurry it up?"  
"I did, sir. That's why I was late."  
"Oh," the captain was pleasantly surprised. "Good work. I'm glad there's someone besides me who wants to get work done. Is your shift over yet, lieutenant?"  
"Not yet, sir. I have an hour and a half left."  
"I'm going straight home now. You're may do the same if you like."  
"Thank you, sir."  
Captain McDonald yawned. "Excuse me. You're quite welcome. Dismissed."  
The lieutenant commander turned around and left the room.  
  
  
In another part of the base, two security guards had just begun their shift.  
"What was that?"  
"What?"  
"I thought I heard something from inside the cargo bay?"  
"No, there couldn't be. How could anybody get in past us?"  
"Yeah, that's true."  
(A few minutes later)  
"They could get in through this door that has been forced open!"  
"Aw shit. Sound the alarm. Deploy security to this section immediately."  
An alarm sounded throughout the station. Captain McDonald happened to be passing the security office on his way to the shuttle hangar to go home. He went inside.  
"Hey, what's going on?" he demanded.  
"Section 103 reports a security breach. A door has been forced into the cargo bay. I'm reading three life signs inside, but very faint. I think they were trying to hide the life signs, which is why they were not detected by the routine scans. They only show up on the advanced internally detection grid, which only operates when we activate it."  
"Get them out. Now."  
"Security has been deployed to that section already, sir."  
"Good. Inform me when the intruders have been captured. So I can go home."  
"Yes sir."  
When the captain was just a few steps down the corridor, the alarms again sounded, signaling red alert status. The man from the security office yelled after him. "Captain, we have enemy ships closing on the base!" The captain ran back to the security office. "A small transport accompanied by several fighters."  
"Whose are they?"  
"Romulan." 


	2. The Egrets of Alpha Squadron

Starbase 1194  
"What groups are available?" Captain McDonald asked in the center of operations of the starbase.  
"Groups one and two can be ready in ten minutes."  
"How soon will those Romulans get here?"  
"Oh, not for at least fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. They were still a ways out there when we detected them."  
"Good. Order the crews to prepare groups one and two, and have them launch as soon as they are ready."  
"Yes, sir."  
  
  
The Egret Hangar, Starbase 1194  
"All fighter scramble. We have enemy vessels inbound," said the comm system inside the hangar.  
"You heard the order," the officer charge said to the crews. "Get these birds ready for action. All pilots meet in the briefing room." The hangar sprung to life. The crews ran around gathering tools and tricorders, inspecting each Egret carefully and quickly, and fixing any problems they may have discovered.  
"Okay," the commander said as he addressed the small group of Egret pilots. "There is a small Romulan transport approaching the base, and it is accompanied by a number of smaller ships. These smaller fighters may attack the base, or they may just be escorting the transport. The real problem is that a short time ago security detected intruders in section 103. These intruders have managed to escape from the base after stealing a number of upsilon devices. Security teams are searching the area, but have not yet captured the thieves. Your mission is to keep the incoming enemy vessels outside of transport range of the planet. If they manage to beam up the thieves, you must capture the ship that beamed them up. If this happens, we'll tell which ship to capture. The enemy fighters are likely to engage you when they realize that you intend to keep them away from the base. Destroy them if necessary, but do not allow the thieves to escape. We cannot let anyone get an upsilon device. I realize that many of you have never flown an Egret in actual combat before. Just remember your training and do your best out there. Okay, to your fighters and launch immediately."  
Some of the pilots were excited and ready to defend the Federation; others were right out of Starfleet Academy and were somewhat reluctant to go into combat. This was different than serving on a starship that was going into combat. They would not have a huge number of other crew members to rely on for help, just the other Egrets, who had to look out for themselves as well. It was combat on a much more individual basis. They would be just pushing a button on an LCARS control panel to shoot torpedoes at a ship a few million kilometers away, either. They would be flying right up to the enemy, confronting them face to face. Then they had to complete their mission on top of it all. A few of them worried about how many faces they would see upon returning to the hangar, or if they would even return at all. How many Egrets would they see destroyed right before their eyes? Hopefully none, of course, but there was no way to know. Anything could go wrong in an instant that would make an Egret not return to its nest.  
The pilots went out to their Egrets just as the crews were finishing their inspections. A group of three pilots approached their fighters.  
"You guys ready for this?" a pilot named John asked his two friends form the Academy. He had always wanted to join Starfleet, and when the Egret came out, he decided that being an Egret pilot would be the coolest position in Starfleet. He met Sylvia and Fred on his first day of classes at the Academy, and has stayed with them ever since. John was the first to take a liking to Egrets, and his two friends quickly followed.  
"I knew it'd come eventually," Cil said. Both John and Fred usually called her Cil. She was born on Mars, and her father was one of the designers of the famous Galaxy-class starship.   
"Let's go shoot some Romulans," Fred said, and climbed into his Egret. Fred was always the adventurous one of the group. The other two followed suit and climbed into their fighters. The Egrets began launching. The three of them made up Alpha Squadron. Since the Egrets were very new, there weren't many Starfleet officers qualified to be squadron leaders, so Starfleet gave the majority of these positions who had demonstrated superior leadership and piloting abilities at the Academy. This position in Alpha Squadron went John. Both Cil and Fred were glad that their squadron leader would be somebody that they knew very well and who had always shown a high amount of caring and friendship to them. Sylvia pushed the throttle to full and followed John out of the hangar with Fred right behind her.  
"Nova lead to Alpha lead. We'll go after the fighters. You guys can just take the transport," John heard through the Egret's comm system.  
"Thanks Nova. We copy," John said back. "Okay, guys, we get the transport and Nova will get the fighters," he said to his group.  
Sylvia looked at her sensor display and saw the fighters approaching rapidly with the transport a short distance behind them. "Here they come," she said.  
Nova squadron engaged the Romulan fighters, but there were not enough Egrets from Nova to take all the Romulans. While most of the enemy ships were occupied with Nova, two of them moved in to attack group Alpha.   
"Alpha lead, you have permission to attack the transport and disable its shields and engines. Do not destroy it," John was told, but Sylvia and Fred could hear it too since all of the fighters, including Nova squadron, were on the same channel. "Let's go," he said. He approached the transport and fired his phasers into its shield grid. That was the first time he had ever fired at something that was not a training target. He watched the orange beams from his Egret get absorbed into the shields of the Romulan ship.   
"Hey, there's two fighters coming in at us," Fred said. The other two checked their sensors and confirmed Fred's observation.   
"We'll get the fighters, John, and you get the ship," Sylvia said. The transport had begun firing at John, but his shields stopped all the shots that he didn't manage to evade. Alpha 2 and 3 broke off and engaged the two fighters. Sylvia fired her phasers at the Romulan fighter as it maneuvered away from her. She then turned around to face it again and fired three quantum torpedoes and watched them close in on the target for a few seconds before going off to help Fred. The quantum torpedoes did their job and the fighter was destroyed. Fred and Sylvia pelted the remaining fighter with their phasers until it blew up.   
"Guys, I can't stop this thing. It's entering transporter range of the base."  
"Can't we get it when its shields go down for transport?"  
"By then it's too late. They'll have the intruders. Alpha lead to Nova lead. We need some help with this transport."  
"Sorry, Alpha lead," Nova lead told John, "we have our hands full." The three Egrets of Alpha squadron unleashed everything they had on the transport, seriously damaging its hull, but it wasn't enough. The transport soon reactivated its shield grid and Alpha squadron was out of torpedoes. They attacked with their phasers, still taking fire from the transport. The shields were almost gone on all three Egrets, but they continued their attack anyway. Right up to the point when the transport went to warp. 


	3. Atmospheric Combat

Earth  
A few months later  
  
The U.S.S Saturn and the U.S.S Enterprise-E were floating in Earth orbit. After the Romulan raiders stole a number of upsilon devices, Starfleet Intelligence made a number of efforts to discover where the devices had been taken and what the Romulans were doing with them. The Romulan government denied all knowledge of the attack, as expected. Starfleet had managed to locate the locations where the attacks originated, and Captain Picard was ordered to command a task force sent to destroy these bases. The ships in the task force, besides the Enterprise-E, included the Saturn and two Akira-class ships. Special long range tactical missiles designed with upsilon technology would allow the group to attack the Romulan bases from afar. Only the two Sovereign-class ships were being loaded with these weapons. The other two were part of the task force to provide some protection to the Enterprise and Saturn from any Romulan warbirds that may be sent to intercept them if they should be detected. Two squadrons of Egrets, Alpha and Nova, were on standby to provide additional support if necessary, but they would have to use their enhanced warp drives to reach the task force. No one expected the task force to need assistance however.  
  
U.S.S Saturn  
  
Azalea beamed to her ship after she left the mission briefing at Starfleet Headquarters. The ship was still being loaded with the weapons and more supplies, and most of the crew was on the surface. There was an entirely different feel to the ship when it was virtually empty. She ran into no one on her way to her quarters, which involved a walk down two long corridors and a ride in the turbolift. When she got to her quarters, she went in, took off her shoes, brushed some of her long blonde hair out of her face, and sat down in a chair. She crossed her legs in her chair so that she was sitting on them. Azalea was often more comfortable in this position than sitting normally. She remembered the fish tank that Picard had in the wall of his ready room. That was cool. I'll have to get one of those, she thought. Azalea picked up a padd that contained the design schematics of the Egret and began looking through them. Even as a little girl, she had always known space combat to be between two large starships. The idea of space fighters was a cool knew concept to her. She remembered reading in a history class she took in high school about the way combat was three hundred years ago. Atmospheric craft would shoot projectile weapons at each other and drop explosive charges to destroy targets on the ground. She had an amount of respect for those who fight in craft that had no shields to protect them from enemy fire and one hit could kill you. She found the measures they took to avoid detection especially interesting. Imagine design a craft with the sole purpose of being sneaky, she though. If only they had cloaking devices!  
Azalea set the padd back on the table that was next to her chair and glanced around the room. Her eyes landed on the small black furry creature that lay sleeping on her bed. She enjoyed having the cat in her quarters. She never had a pet as a child, but there was a cat that wondered around her neighborhood and she was the only one who it didn't run away from. She walked over to the bed, sat down next to the animal, and began stroking him. She had named him Fluffie because that was the first word that came to her mind every time she thought of him. Her petting him woke him up, and he stood up and brushed his head against the side of her body. Fluffie then turned around, climbed into her lap, and closed his eyes again. "You sleep too much," she said to him.   
Her combage chirped. "Captain, the supplies are all on board. Captain Picard has told us to prepare to leave orbit," Walters told her.  
"Okay. On my way," she said. She picked up Fluffie and placed him back on the bed. He meowed, and then jumped down from the bed. As Azalea was putting her shoes back the cat went over and drank some water from his bowl which Azalea had placed in the corner of the room away from the door. She sometimes worried that he would wonder out of her quarters and get lost in the ship. This was the reason that Fluffie wore a collar with a tracking device in it. Azalea left the room and proceeded to the bridge.  
  
  
***  
  
  
"Keep a look out for the defense drones," John told the rest of Alpha Squadron.   
"Copy that, John, but I haven't seen any for a while," Fred replied.  
"According to the mission briefing, they are normally in the upper atmosphere. If we stay below forty thousand they probably won't notice us. I don't think they're programmed to check that low."  
"Good idea."  
"Catch that, Cil?"  
"Yep," she answered. They were flying through the atmosphere of a Mars-type planet. The terrain had the reddish color of iron oxide, and there were geological formations punctuating the ground. Sylvia watched the small number for AGL go up on the display as they passed the point where a plateau dropped off forming a cliff. There was a deep ravine ahead. She enjoyed the view of the landscape from the Egret, something that would be missed if they were operating in space or at a much high altitude, as was usually the case. As the formation flew over a field of volcanic craters and steam vents, they turned to port, following their flight path.   
"Okay, gang, it's just up here aways," John told them.  
"Guys, drones," Fred said. "155 mark 4."  
"I see them," Cil said.  
"One of us should go for the target and the others should get the drones," Fred suggested.  
"Um, how 'bout not," John said.  
"Why not?" Fred asked.  
"Because the target may have its own defense's and we don't want to be sending somebody to their death."  
"Crap."  
"We'll all engage the drones, and then proceed to the target. This is why is usually good to send two groups on a mission."  
"Really," Sylvia commented. A cluster of three defense drones was approaching. The group altered course to intercept them.  
"We'll each take one," John declared. He picked out a target and went for it. Fred and Sylvia did likewise, but made sure to each select a different one. Fred approached his target, fired two shots from the Egret's phasers to disable the drone's shields, passing it in the process. He then doubled back and destroyed the target with a few more phaser hits. Sylvia did the job the easy way by firing three quantum torpedoes and watching each smack into the drone until there was nothing left of it. John fired one torpedo while he was still some distance away from his target, then used phasers to finish it off when he drew closer to it. "Nice work, guys," he said when they were finished.   
"You know it'll never really be that easy," Fred pointed out. They again headed for the mountain where their primary target lay.   
"Approaching the target," John announced. "Everybody scan it, just in case one of us misses something or our scanners aren't working right."  
"Alright," Sylvia answered, "scanning."   
"I don't really see much. Minimal energy readings."  
"Yeah? Look again," Sylvia said.  
"What the hell? This thing like… just came alive."  
"I told you it'd probably have its own defenses," John said.  
"That's why you were made squadron leader," Fred said. Two phaser turrets rose up out of the ground and began firing at the Egrets.   
"Try to evade their fire, don't just let your shields take it all," John told them. "If you take too many hits, it'll affect your performance rating."  
"Aw, damn."   
"Cil, you can take the target. We'll kill the defenses," John said.  
"Roger," she replied. John and Fred each broke off and fired quantum torpedoes at each phaser turret while Sylvia proceeded to the target and fired two torpedoes when the computer told her that she was in range. Her sensors detected the explosions of the defense turrets. When it no longer registered on the sensors, she broke left and rejoined the rest of the group.  
"Well guys, that's it" John said. "All targets destroyed."  
"It's nice that we could do the mission without going to a different planet," Fred said.  
"Yeah, this is a cool planet," Sylvia said.  
"Base to Alpha squadron. Mission completed. Good job. RTB," came the message from Starbase 1194. 


	4. The Sensor Grid

"What do you think he wants to see us about?" Fred asked.  
"I don't know. Maybe he has an assignment for us," John said. They all entered Captain McDonald's office.   
"So where is he?"   
"He'll be here," John told him. "He told us to report here." At that moment, the captain walked in.  
"Hello," he said.  
"Good afternoon, sir," John replied.  
"There have been some complications in a mission that Starfleet had given to a group of ships. There is a sensor grid that must be disabled, destroyed if possible, before these ships may complete their mission successfully. The grid is sensitive enough to detect even one ship if it got close enough to fire. Your mission will be to do as much damage as possible to this grid, but you must disable it enough to allow the ships to enter the area undetected. Nova squadron will also go along on the mission and will be launched if needed. It should be an easy mission, but be advised that we have absolutely no idea as to how well defended the grid is. Some parts may be more defended than others. The grid may be operated from a central location, but it would not be a good idea to attack this unless you find that it has little or no defenses. We have identified key sections of the grid that, if destroyed, will allow the ships to enter the area safely. These should be your primary targets."  
"How will we know when the grid has been adequately disabled?" John asked.  
"Destroying these key targets should be enough, but be ready to attack any additional targets that the task force may give you."  
"Got it."  
"Good. The Saturn and the Enterprise should be here by now. The Enterprise is the lead ship of this task force, and your fighters will be carried aboard. Nova will be carried aboard the Saturn."  
"Any other questions?"  
"No, sir."  
"Alright. Then report to your fighters and join up with Enterprise."  
"Yes, sir."  
"Dismissed."  
  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
  
Upon entering the sector where the grid was located, Alpha squadron was launched. They left the group of ships and proceed to the target, which was located on a class-M planet that was 80% jungles. Somewhere deep inside these jungles was sensor transceiver that must be destroyed. As they approached the planet, they began to worry about merely finding it, much less destroying it. They entered the atmosphere of the planet right above the point where the target was supposed to be.  
"So where is it?" Fred asked. "All I see are humongous trees. How accurate is the location Starfleet gave us?"  
"Accurate to about a hundred kilometers," John said. "It was the best they could do. Any better and the ship that gathered that information would have been discovered."  
"So what do we do?"  
"We find it." The group began searching the surrounding area for the target, hoping that it wouldn't, or hadn't already detected them. Many of the details of its operation were still unknown, so they had very little to go on.   
"Enterprise to Alpha lead." Picard had decided to check on their progress. "How are doing?"  
"Well, sir," John answered," we are having trouble finding the target. It wasn't at the location we were given. Is there any way you can help us out?"  
"I'm afraid not," Picard said. "Not at this range. We can afford to wait a short time, but don't let that slow you down."  
"Understood, sir," John said.  
The group continued its search for the so far elusive sensor transceiver.  
"Why don't we try that dense stand of trees about 17 kilometers away," Sylvia suggested. "Seems like a good place to hide something to me."  
The rest of the group agreed with her, and so they changed course to investigate this new location. The air was became increasingly filled with mist. On the ground a river flowed over a cliff, forming a tall waterfall.  
"Yeah, it's here alright," Fred said. "The energy readings here are far too high to be naturally occurring."  
"Good, I guess we found it," John said. "But where is exactly is, though?"  
"Any ideas, Cil? You've been doing good so far," Fred said.  
"I think we have something else to worry about for now. Check your sensors. I'm showing energy signatures approaching, through the air. We found it alright, and it's found us too."  
"Fighters," John said. "Enterprise, this is Alpha lead. We show fighters inbound on our position."  
"Sit tight, Alpha lead," Riker responded. "We're sending Nova squadron to help." Picard then told Azalea to launch her fighters.   
"Thanks."  
"They'll never get here in time," Fred pointed out. "Do we hurry up and go for the target, or engage the fighters."  
"They'll be engaging us soon," John said. "Let's try and pretend we don't now quite where it is." The group followed their course towards the target a short while longer, then turned away from it. The fighters moved in and attacked Alpha squadron.  
They managed to destroy a few of the enemy fighter, but it wasn't enough, and Nova squadron had still not arrived yet. Sylvia's Egret took one too many torpedo hits and an explosion erupted from it. It plummeted towards the ground.  
"John! John, Cil's hit! We gotta help her!" Fred yelled, even though it had limited effect over the comm system.  
"What can we do," John told him. "We have to get the target. Then the ships can come in and rescue her."  
Fred became quite angry. "Do realize what you're saying? She's been your friend all through the academy. Don't you care about her at all?" Fred was coming close to tears.  
"She'll be alright. Now we gotta kill this sensor grid. There. I can see it on that plateau thing. Let's go. Now, Fred!" The two remaining Egrets proceeded to the target, although one of them was very reluctant about it. Both fighters fired photon torpedoes at the target. It began to burn and collapse. The rest of the enemy's closed on them.  
"Alpha lead, this Nova. We are arriving at the planet. Standby."  
"Let's get outta here," John said, as the target suddenly exploded, sending bits of metal and debris flying.  
"Don't even talk to me," Fred shot back at him. Nova squadron covered John and Fred as the returned to the Enterprise, destroying two more fighters in the process. Sylvia used the Egret's emergency transporter to escape from it as soon as she realized that she could no longer control it. When she materialized, she saw her Egret streak through the air and smash into the ground in a somewhat large explosion. She wondered how long it would be until she was rescued. This though brought new fears to her mind. What if the Romulans found here? She took a quick look around. There were trees everywhere, but she could see the water fall in the distance. She took off her red Starfleet uniform in an attempt to be less noticeable, but the white shirt she wore underneath it was not much better. She doubted that there was anything left of her Egret after that explosion, but she headed toward anyway just to see. She didn't even know if Fred and John had succeeded, though she hoped they had or she may be on this planet for some time. That is, unless the Romulans found her first.   
When she reached the remains of the Egret, she found a portion of the emergency supplies normally carried on an Egret. There was a phaser, which she was very glad to find, as well as enough rations to last for a few days. Not much else, unfortunately. There homing signal was probably destroyed. While that may prevent the Romulans from finding her, or the Egret for that matter, it would have the same effect on the Enterprise crew. She collected the phaser and container of emergency rations and headed into the jungle in the hopes of finding better cover. The Romulans would no doubt be searching the area. She hoped they would think she died in the crash.   
  
  
  
The rest of Alpha squadron returned to the Enterprise as Nova went back to the Saturn. Picard met John and Fred in the corridor outside shuttle bay one.   
"We did it, sir. This section of the grid no longer exists."  
"Good work. I will inform Starfleet of your success. We will rescue your friend before proceeding with the mission, so you need not worry too much about her."  
"Thank you, Captain," John said. Picard walked away down the corridor, and John and Fred went the other way back to their quarters. "You could have said something," John said to Fred.  
"Shut up, you son of a bitch."  
"Excuse me?!"  
"That's right, you heard me. You know, I used to have a lot of respect for you. Until now. How could leave her out there? And what if the Romulans find her? What then?"  
"How dare you! I am your…"  
"Only when we're in those fighters on an official mission you are. That wouldn't be now." Fred was quiet for a few seconds. "Just leave me the hell alone." He then walked quickly away and returned to his quarters, wishing they were further from John's than just down the hall. He didn't sleep at all that night. He could stop worrying about Sylvia. She was alone in enemy territory and there was nothing he could do about it. He though about stealing a shuttle and going after her, but he realized that he'd never get off the ship. He tried to put it out of his mind, but he couldn't. The thought of the Romulans finding her scared him more than anything else he had ever experienced. His eyes again filled with tears, and he wondered if he would ever see her again. 


	5. In Enemy Territory

"Captain, long-range sensors show multiple ships approaching," Data informed Picard on the bridge, shortly after the fighters had been recovered. "There are two groups, one at zero-three-seven mark one-five, the other at two-eight-nine mark one-six."  
"Can you identify them?" Picard asked.  
"They appear to be Romulan warbirds, although I cannot tell exactly how many at this range."  
"We can't stay here. Can we reach the firing point before they get here?"  
"Doubtful. That point is still one point six hours away at warp eight, and the warbirds will reach us long before then."  
"We have to abort the mission. Contact the other ships and inform them of the situation."  
"Yes, sir."  
  
  
  
Picard's ready room door beeped. "Come," he yelled in that direction. Fred walked in.  
"Captain," he said.  
"Yes, lieutenant," Picard answered.  
"Sir, may I ask why we are leaving the system? We haven't found Sylvia yet."  
"There are two groups of Romulan warbirds on an intercept course. We having been taking every measure to find her, but on scans of planet have not been very effective."  
"Sir, we cannot simply leave her here."  
"Yes, but neither can I risk four ships and the lives of all their crews to save one person."  
"Why not? Riker did, when you were captured by the Borg. He risked the Enterprise-D and its crew to save you."   
Picard remained silent. He still vividly remembered that terrible ordeal, and probably always would. "The task force must return to Earth," he said, "but if you would like to take your fighter and go looking for her, I won't stop you. I don't know what you can do, but you are welcome to try."  
"Thank you, sir," Fred said, and he left the room. As the four ships withdrew from the area, a single Egret remained. It returned to the battleground in search of its lost sister.  
  
  
  
Sylvia arrived at a river that had a few medium sized rocks in it. She could see the waterfall further upstream. She might have actually enjoyed this planet, if she didn't have to worry about such things as Romulans and if she would ever see the Federation again. At least there was plenty of water. She would not need the small pouches of water that came with the emergency rations. Sylvia was reluctant to eat any of the plants, not knowing if they are poisonous or not. She took a small device from the survival kit and collected some water with it. She waited a few seconds, and then drank some. There were enough trees near the bank of the river to keep her out of the heat of this system's two stars, but there were still not dense enough to hide her from any Romulans who may be on the planet looking for her.   
Fred was beginning to wonder how much help he really could be to her. An Egret was only large enough for one person, so even if he found her, he could take her back to Earth. He would have to stay with her. What if know one ever came for them? What if he never found her? He tried to clear his mind of these thoughts. He entered the atmosphere of the planet and began looking for her. The target location that they had been given by Starfleet, although incorrect, may now help him. He decided to use this location to start his search. He knew approximately where her fighter was hit and she could not have made it very far on foot yet.  
Sylvia heard a noise behind her. She quickly turned around, but saw nothing. She got up and watched the area for a while. Nothing happened for a few minutes, but then she saw a tree branch moving back and forth slightly, as if it had just been disturbed. Either there were indigenous life forms on this planet, or the Romulans had come. She looked back across the river. There was a large rocky formation on the other side. She headed down to the river and stepped up onto on of the rocks in it. Sylvia carefully walked across them to the other side. She then turned around again and watched the opposite bank. There was a creaking noise and more movement of the plants over there. Something was tracking her, but whatever it was, it was not very good at concealing itself. She went over to the rocky hill and climbed halfway up it. Keeping close to its surface to avoid being seen, she peered over the top. Two Romulans emerged from the forest and began looking around the surrounding area. Then one of them said something to the other. Good, she thought. They appeared to have lost her. Now what? She watched them for a while. Neither one of them every looked up at hill she was hiding on. Sylvia wondered where they came from. They were not carrying any equipment except for disruptor rifles, so there must be a Romulan outpost or ship nearby. Then she realized something. If there was a warbird in orbit, it would have beamed her up already. Sylvia decided to play it safe and let the Romulans have the next move.  
Fred reached the location where the target was supposed to have been and followed their course from the battle as best as he could remember it. He flew low in the hopes of spotting terrain that might indicate he was on the right path. There was the waterfall. He checked the sensor readout. Three life forms, one human and two Romulan.  
"Oh, shit," he said to himself. He knew that Sylvia was in immediate danger. He finished scanning the area. He discovered a small Romulan scout ship in a clearing a short distance from the three life signs. He wondered why they landed on the surface instead of just beaming down. Then he remembered that he hadn't seen much from his own sensors before getting considerably low in the planet's atmosphere. There was something about this place that made scanning from orbit virtually impossible. Were the Romulans doing it? That didn't matter now. He kept far enough away from the life signs to avoid being noticed and landed his own craft a short distance behind Sylvia's hill. Fred left his Egret there and proceeded towards the river.   
Sylvia kept watching the two Romulans on the opposite bank. They spoke briefly again, and then went back into the forest. They had apparently assumed that she wasn't here. She was glad that they were finally gone. Lying prone on a steep rocky hill wasn't exactly comfortable, but it had worked. She waited for a few minutes more, then stood up and climbed down. At the bottom, she brushed the dust and dirt off of herself. At that moment, Fred entered the clearing around the river and saw Sylvia at the base of a pile of rocks. He ran over to her, not thinking that his sudden appearance would no doubt alarm her.   
She heard footsteps behind her. It sounded like someone running, but the Romulans were on the other side of the river. And they had gone. When she turned around and saw Fred, she didn't know what to think. She had seen him and John go on to the target, and assumed that they had eventually returned to the Enterprise and continued with the mission. Fred reached her and threw his arms around her, relieved to find her alive and at least not seriously injured. She returned his warm embrace, albeit still trying to figure out what the hell he was doing here. After a short time, he let go of her.  
"Fred? What the hell are you doing here?" she asked him.  
"What do you think?" he said. "I came to help you. No one else would. I landed my fighter over that way, about five minutes away." She smiled, realizing that it was not important exactly how he intended to help her, just that he had risked his life to come to her. She hugged him again. "Thanks," she said. 


	6. Desperate Measures

"How are we going to get out of here?" Sylvia asked Fred. "Egrets can only hold one person, and mine doesn't even exist anymore."  
"That'll take some thought," Fred said, basically because he didn't know what else to say. He went over to the hill to sit down on one of the rocks near the bottom.  
"That's all dirty," she said. She still hadn't gotten all of the dust out of her clothes.  
"Who cares," he said and sat down anyway. She immediately joined him. He looked at her, remembering back to when he first met her at the Academy. He thought of how much their lives had changed since then, but was very glad to still be with her, even on a hostile planet. "We'll need some way of contacting Earth," he said. "We can try the Egret's comm system, but it won't reach all the way back to Earth. Unless we get lucky and there's a Federation ship nearby, we're going to need some other plan." She picked up a small rock, got up, and threw it into the river. She watched the water splash up from where the rock went in.   
She turned to Fred. "Did you see anything on your sensors coming here? There were two Romulans here a few minutes before you got here."  
"Yeah, I picked them up. They've got a small ship nearby, or they did. It oughta still be here. We'd have heard it if it left." They heard a loud roar come from the forest across the river and saw a small green ship rise up out of the woods. "Speak of the devil."  
"Can you catch it?" she asked him. Fred then began to question the sanity of the girl he had known so well for at least five years.  
"Hold on a minute. What are you trying to say?"  
"If we could take their ship, we could leave the planet."  
Fred seriously doubted the success of any such plan, but then he remembered how she had been right about the true location of the sensor grid transceiver. "How do we take the ship?" he asked.   
"You've still got your Egret," she said.  
"Yes, but their ship won't do us any good if it's damaged too much."  
She thought for a minute. "Can't you just take down their shield and then beam them off the ship?"  
"Assuming I had a runabout, I could. Egret transporters only work in one direction." They sat there for a while. "But I supposed it might be possible to reprogram it. It doesn't have the filtering devices and stuff that starships have because it wasn't designed to beam things in. I supposed that doesn't matter though. The targeting scanners are very specific, and that's what we need."  
"So you can do it?" she asked.  
"Not alone. You'll have to come back and help. And I don't like the idea of leaving you here alone while I go after that thing." He put his arm around her.  
"One of us will have to do it," she said. "I will if you want."   
"Do you want to?"  
"I should be alright here," she answered.  
"Okay. Let's get started on the transporter."  
Fred showed Sylvia the way back to his fighter and they began the work on the transporter. The transporter was programmed to transport the pilot out of the fighter to a safe location nearby in an emergency. In space, this would be most likely be another ship. It could also be to a point in space if the pilot was wearing a sealed suit or a planet if the fighter was closer enough, but the range was far less than a starship transporter. They had to reprogram the targeting scanners to lock onto life forms in a location other than inside the fighter, which took some time. After that, they had to program it to route the signal to a location other than the fighter. The whole process took quite a while. When they finished, they began to discuss how this plan would actually be carried out.  
"So after I take down their shields and beam them out, then what?" Fred asked.  
"Can you beam yourself to it?"  
"Now I can. But even if do, what happens to the Egret? We can't just forget about it."  
"That's true. If we just leave it here, the Romulans will get it. But what else can we do?"  
"One of us can fly their ship and one of us can fly the fighter. An extra ship may come in handy. We're still behind enemy lines even after we leave the planet."  
"Yeah."  
"I know. I'll tell the Egret's autopilot to fly back here and then I'll activate the autopilot right before I beam to the ship."  
"What'll it do when it gets here?"  
"Just stay here. I can't make it to land. I don't know anything about autopilot programming. It's possible to, of course, but Starfleet didn't do it ahead of time. It can land at starbases and starships, but not random locations on jungle planets."  
"Yeah, I guess nobody ever thought that would be needed."  
"Really."  
"Then how do we get back to it?"  
"One of us'll have to beam to it, I guess. Or we could program it so that it'll beam one of us to it upon combadge activation. " There was no need for a combadge while piloting an Egret, but it wasn't necessary to remove it either, so nobody did.  
"That sounds like a good idea. We shouldn't play around with the Romulan transporter unless we have to."  
"Yeah. Okay, let's do that." They then proceeded to do even more programming of the Egret's transporter, but this time it didn't take very long. Since it had been dark on the planet for a few hours now and they were both tired, they took turns sleeping and keeping watch.  
When it was light, Fred got into his Egret to go find the Romulan shuttle. It was safe to assume it was still on the planet looking for Sylvia. She just stayed where Fred had landed the fighter before and tried to avoid open spaces, although they didn't expect the Romulans to come back because they had already been there. Fred didn't know how long it would take to find the shuttle, but he refused to leave Sylvia alone for too long at time, so he told her that he would return every few hours until he found it. He wondered whether there were other Romulans on this planet, or even in the system. 


	7. The B model

Tom saw a few familiar faces as he walked to the front of the room, Captain McDonald, Captain Sanchet, Captain Picard. He also saw a number of admiral uniforms and a good number of civilians there too. He turned to face the crowd, and everyone became quiet.  
"Good morning," he said, "and thank you all for coming. I'm sure all of you are familiar with Starfleet's Egret. Egret flight-testing was completed at Starbase 1194, which also happened to be the site of its first combat mission. Its performance has been impressive, and there is now no doubt as to the usefulness of fighters. The engineers who designed and built the Egret closely watched as the Egret completed flight-testing and began to fight in real battles, both in space and in planetary atmospheres. We liked what we saw, but we still thought we could do better. Now, fourteen months after the first production Egret left the construction yards just north of San Francisco, we have." He stood aside to allow the crowd to see the large screen on the wall behind him. It became illuminated with a computer-generated picture of an Egret, but it looked different somehow.  
Azalea had taken quite an interest in the Egret program since she first heard about it from someone at Starfleet Headquarters. She was no engineer, but she enjoyed learning about the Egret whenever she could. She watched the screen closely. That Egret did seem different, but she couldn't quite tell what about it had been changed. Then she noticed that the tail fins were different. Instead of the vertical configuration that was used on the existing Egrets, these were sort of at an angle. The body also looked different. It seemed a bit bigger, but not enough to stand out a lot; it was only apparent after looking at the picture for a while. The picture was a plan form view, with the nose in the bottom right corner of the screen and the tail in the upper left, so the whole thing wasn't visible. She wondered what other changes had been made that she hadn't noticed. That's what Tom was here to tell her.  
"Presenting the new B-model Egret," Tom said. The screen switched to a schematic of the Egret. "We took the existing Egret design and made it better. To start, we increased the size of the body slightly to accommodate a larger warp core and bigger engines. We have installed new shield technology that has been adapted to fit the role of fighters. At full power, the shields are stronger than most other small craft, including runabouts. Normal, non-combat operation of the shields is at a much lower power level so as not to consume too much energy. While the existing Egret can only reach a maximum velocity of warp six, the new version can hit a full warp nine. Use of the upsilon device does not deplete the warp core as much as in the existing fighters. A new propulsion system and a newly designed control system greatly improve atmospheric operation." While he was talking, the screen had been scrolling through various views of the systems that he had mentioned.  
"But we didn't stop here. In a galaxy dominated by starships, the Egret will frequently have to face enemies larger than itself. In fact, the existing Egret already has, with the results being less than what we would have hoped. The B-model Egret has four phasers instead of two, still mounted in the leading edge of the wing. These phasers are also two to three times as powerful as the existing Egret weaponry. They also feature two different modes of operation. All four guns can be automatically targeted at the same point for maximum effectiveness. In this mode, they all fire at once. However, a fairly good lock is necessary for this to work. In combat with other fighters, this is a luxury our pilots seldom enjoy. In order to stay useful in this situation, the phasers can be operated without being targeted. Here the firing order is one, three, two, four, And they fire in rapid succession," he indicted to respective labels on the diagram currently being displayed on the screen. The guns were numbered from left to right. "The recharge rate is approximately point seven seconds, which is possible through the use of a sophisticated power grid. The actual time between firing is one point three seconds to avoid overheating the guns. In space, this is automatically reduced to one point zero seconds, since space is significantly colder than most planetary atmospheres where the Egret is likely to be deployed.  
We increased the size of the weapons bay so that it can hold up to eighteen photon or quantum torpedoes and twenty anti-fighter missiles that we designed specifically for the Egret. These are more effective at destroying enemy fighters since they are more maneuverable than photon or quantum torpedoes. They are also optimized for atmospheric use and can destroy an enemy with one or two hits. They haven't been tested at close range yet, though, since we've been putting all our efforts into the new Egret. We advise pilots to use the phasers against close targets; they will be more than sufficient." The screen changed to another computer-generated picture of an the Egret flying over Mars-like terrain. "That concludes our presentation of the new B-model Egret. Any questions?"  
This was her chance to learn something about the brand new Egret that was not even in service yet. Azalea put her hand in the air.  
"Yes, Captain Sanchet," Tom said. He didn't want to use her first name in front of everyone. Some of the people in the crowd wondered how he knew her.  
"Will Starfleet alter the mission of the Egret considering these new capabilities?" she asked.  
"Well, we haven't given gotten into specifics on that yet, but it will allow Egrets to be more liberal in their missions. Starfleet will be able to send Egrets on a much wider variety of missions. Up to now, Egrets have been used for precision strikes against key targets while trying to avoid enemies whenever possible. Now we won't have to worry about that as much. Perhaps even attacking them directly may be in store for the B-model Egrets. Anyone else?" He waited for a few moments and no one said anything. "Thank you again for your time. We hope you enjoyed this presentation of our new fighter." Tom left the front of the room and walked out the door. The people began to get up and leave their seats. 


	8. Too Much Green

Fred's A-model Egret raced through the atmosphere of the planet looking for the Romulan scout. He maintained a high altitude in order to be able to see more at a time. For three hours, he roamed around the planet alone. He had talked to Sylvia a number of times. He liked to hear her voice; it was comforting to him, plus the fact that it told him that she was okay. He was now at a point where he didn't watch his sensor readout as carefully as he did at first. He didn't expect to find the Romulans for a time, while in the back of his mind he was afraid that they would suddenly decloak behind him and open fire.   
  
Cil was getting rather bored sitting there waiting for Fred to find the scout. When she wasn't talking to him through her combadge, she just walked slowly around the area, observing the plants. She never saw any other life forms.   
  
Fred happened to glance at the sensor display, which showed a small vessel ahead of him. The Egret's computer, which was programmed to identify known enemies of the Federation before the Egret reached them, labeled the target as hostile. He changed course to intercept the target.  
  
When he was within range, he opened fire on the green Romulan ship. He could see the phaser blasts hitting the shield grid. The scout maneuvered to evade him, but he was too close for that to be very effective. Staying close to the target also made it harder for them to hit him, although his fighter did get a few minor injuries. When the computer told him that the scout's shields were down, he tried to transport the crew off of it. It took the transported some time to lock onto them, and in the meantime the scout kept trying to get away from him. It was faster than he had expected, and he sometimes had to push the throttle to full to stay within transporter range. He kept trying to beam away the Romulans onboard until there were no more life signs inside the ship. Then he activated the Egret's autopilot and beamed to the scout before his fighter left transporter range. When he materialized, he was very relieved to find an empty ship. He went over to the controls and figured out how to fly the thing. He followed his Egret back to Sylvia, who was eagerly awaiting his return. She was worried about him going off to fight Romulans single-handedly, but they both knew that this was the only way they would be able to get off the planet. No friendly ships were likely to be by there for a while.  
  
She got up from sitting under a large alien tree, well, alien to her anyway, and walked far enough away so that she could get a clear view of the planet's sky. The sky was blue, but it wasn't the same blue as Earth. It wasn't as bright, and it seemed to have a little tint of… was that green? On Earth, greenish sky often warned of an incoming storm, but there did not appear to be any clouds on this planet, at least not where she was. She heard the rush of something moving very quickly through the air. It was the Romulan scout ship. The Egret became distinguishable soon after, as it was smaller than the scout was. Sylvia felt herself being transported and she materialized inside the Romulan ship.  
  
"Well, you did it," she said to Fred.  
"Yeah, that was the easy part. Now we have to get out of here without the Romulans finding us."  
"Yeah. Got any ideas?"  
"Just one. Start going and don't look back. I've figured out the shortest route back to Federation space, but it passes near a gas planet about six hours from now or so. Hopefully there won't be any Romulans there, but if one of there ships sees us it might make a good place to hide."  
"That's true. Do you know if Starfleet will be looking for us? I mean, at least keeping their eyes peeled for a lonely Egret coming from within Romulan space?"  
"I'm sure they're watching Romulan space like a hawk right about now. What I'm worried about is what they'll do if they see a lone scout ship coming across the border."  
"Hmm. Damn, I hadn't thought of that. We're not a warbird or anything though, so wouldn't they try to capture it?"  
"They might. Actually, I hope they do. All that'll happen is that they'll bring us in and find out that we're lost Egret pilots, I mean we're obviously not Romulan."  
They both laughed a little at the disgusting thought of being taken for a Romulan. "Well, let's not spend any more time in hostile space than we have too," Fred said.  
"Right. Um, how do you fly this ugly green contraption anyway?"  
"Oh, right. Here, I'll show you." Fred spent the next fifteen or so minutes explaining everything that he had managed to learn about the Romulan vessel in the time it took him to fly it back to where they were now. Then he hit his combadge and was beamed back to his fighter. The two mismatched craft climbed out of the planet's atmosphere together. Sylvia looked back at the planet when they had reached a reasonable distance away from it. It was somewhat green, wasn't it? Weird, quite fitting, but weird nonetheless. They left the system and began following Fred's course out towards the gas planet and home. 


End file.
